Little Ava Big Texas: October 2025- The Cowleys are the Incredibles

Little preview of Halloween:

Aside from the incredibly hot weather, October is one of my favorite times in Hawaii. It's just so fun to be here at Halloween time!

One day Coen and our neighbors sold delicious cookies their mom helped them make. The sign says, "So good Penguins and dragons will eat them!"

Kai learned how to hold his own bottles/sippy cups. His little chubby fingers look so adorable gripping his bottles!

As you may remember, September was a really difficult month. I was struggling with the death of a friend, and also all of the evil and horrific news stories. One day I opened up my hard copy scriptures that I haven't used in a long time, and this note I had written in the margin caught my eye. "Don't let the bad things of the world weigh you down." The scripture says, "... be faithful in Christ; and may not the things which I have written grieve thee, to weigh thee down unto death; but may Christ lift thee up." It was just what I needed.

Kai turned 9 months! Audrey wanted him to wear a birthday crown.

At 9 months, Kai is still SO adored by his siblings. I was worried the novelty would wear off, but they just seem to love him more and more each day.

Audrey's kindergarten picture- so cute!

and Coen's 4th grade picture, also so cute! Poor kids have a super cheap mom who doesn't want to spend so much money to buy the picture.... we had just gotten family pictures taken so I printed the individual shots from those instead.

A beautiful rainbow one morning as the kids were going to school:

Kai smushed against his pack n play made me laugh so hard.

We prepared general conference packets and treats for our Primary class. I found some really fun coloring pages online. Lucky Coen is in our Primary class.

In between sessions of conference we went swimming at the BYUH pool.

We remembered to take Kai's 9 month pictures a couple days late. The day he turned 9 months, Kai slept through the night from 10pm-6am (I think for the first time?). He did that two nights in a row, and then was back to waking up at 3am, and sometimes 1am also. Kai loves most food and is such a good eater. He crawls all over! He LOVES the song "Wheels on the Bus" and will stop crying any time we sing it, no matter what.

Oh the joy this baby brings to our home!

Our neighbor's coconuts were ripe and starting to fall. It's dangerous so the kids know to not play under the tree. Think bowling balls falling from a tree as tall as a house. Some men came to harvest the coconuts- can you see the man way up in the tree?

We had Brother Campbell over to dinner and to watch a session of conference (he's in the background of this picture). His wife was gone for a few weeks helping with a new grandbaby. Kai discovered just how nice the fan can feel. Look at his hair, hahaha!

Coen is such a good little artist- this really looks like Elder Gong to me! I love that Coen wrote down one of my favorite quotes from conference, "There's no sorrow on earth that can't be fixed in heaven." After this, Coen wrote, "It is okay if you are sad and Jesus will help you feel better."

A little more of Coen's creativity- he had lots of fun having Gemini create pictures of Kai in different settings. He gives it prompts and asks it to adjust things etc. until he gets a picture he likes. Here are just a couple of my favorites... Kai the baker:

Kai the cubicle worker. In the picture, the to do list on the computer says: 1. Take nap 2. Eat foot. 3. Re-organize books (urgent).

I had to take a screenshot of the process of working with Gemini. Zoom in on the below picture and see if you notice anything off.

Did you notice it?

Coen asked, "Why does he have three hands."

Then Gemini responded, "Oops, my apologies for that oversight! You're right, that's definitely not how hands work. I've corrected it." Haha!

More Coen drawings:

Fall break was the second week in October. The kids had the full week off, but Brent and I still had to work, so I felt kind of bad that the kids mostly just ran around the neighborhood and watched TV. Luckily Ava had girls camp with our ward from Monday to Wednesday though!

Girls camp was held at the church farm (members can get plots to have a garden). It's in Hauula about 12 minutes from our house, and is across the street from the beach. The girls learned how to paint:

They had fun doing henna. They had many boxes of henna and all came home covered in tattoos!

Highlights of camp included going to the beach, having an outdoor movie night watching Princess Bride, and sleeping underneath the stars in a cot with an E-Z up canopy. One of the nights it rained so they couldn't do their glow in the dark games and the generator wasn't working for their second outdoor movie. So instead the girls gathered around and told funny stories. Ava told them the story about Andrew and the gecko in the microwave in the Philippines which is her personal favorite.

Monday evening I took the three younger kids to the Gunstock Ranch for a family night they were hosting. The ranch is owned by the church and just a mile or two up the road from our house. It felt like a Fall thing to do. The thing about Hawaii is you kind of have to create the seasons in your head :)

I let the kids each get tickets for a face paint activity and ride on a horse.

I was surprised they wanted to go in the petting zoo part with these goats because they were like out of control! Can you see this goat jumping up on the fence? He's big! Haha the kids didn't last too long in there. Kai was fascinated watching the animals.

Kai learned how to give kisses:

We watched the funeral for President Nelson in the morning. We noticed a flower arrangement from BYUH:

Brent sends me cute pictures of Kai from his office:

I had to work late, so Brent took the kids to the library for me to return some books. It happened to be right at the time of a presentation on the historical accuracy of the Chief of War series. Brent had wanted to go to this and forgot, so it was perfect! They even had kalua pork and Kai got to try poi.

I took this picture to capture the carefree life of the kids on Moana Street. You can see they are barefoot, and one boy is carrying a net to try to catch fish or frogs. One boy is driving a remote control car. And the baby in the back is just toddling around in his diaper.

I took the kids to the beach on Friday evening of their Fall Break week so that they at least got a couple outings that week!

I don't often take the kids to the beach by myself because I hate to be outnumbered near the water. But the kids are good and stay in the shallow areas for me.

Ava found a beautiful shell. It was occupied by a little creature so she sadly had to throw it back.

A video of Kai crawling around in his happy place!

We discovered tiny bugs in our noodles in our pantry. Ugh- we had these a couple years ago! They're a sort of grain weevil and like noodles, cereal, etc.

So we had to unload our entire pantry, and throw away anything that had weevils. We wiped down containers and threw away any cardboard boxes since those are what the bugs like to live in. It was quite the process. Dealing with bugs is one of the realities of living in a warm humid climate.

The kids had fun playing with Little People and organized them in groups. Coen wanted a picture:

Kai and I went to Brent's classroom to watch devotional because he is getting too hard to contain and be quiet in the main auditorium.

Kai would like to walk and is starting to find his own walking aids. Here he is pushing a chair around:

Kai also learned how to crawl up the stairs. He waits for me to come chase him and doesn't start up the stairs until he knows he has my attention. Here is a video of him waiting to get my attention, but then getting the giggles so bad that he couldn't crawl up the stairs.

Coen always runs to Kai first after school and wants a hug from Kai.

We keep looking at Kai's eyes to see what color they're turning out to be. Our first three kids all have Brent's bright blue eyes. It is looking like Kai is the only one to get my green eyes.

I went to get an acai bowl on my day off work. It was so delicious and Kai enjoyed it too.

These sweet little java sparrows have moved in to a nest above my bedroom window. They hold a special meaning for me as I first saw them when I was days away from having Kai. I watched them and learned about them, and had this running through my head as I went into a scary labor and delivery with Kai, "His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me."

A Sam's Club and Costco day- it's exhausting since we're gone for anywhere from 5-7 hours doing all of our errands and shopping for the next 3 weeks! Did you know that the Sam's Club here sells kalua pork plates in their cafe? It is so good and the kids often prefer that to the pizza.

An outing to Kawela Bay- it was crowded this day! Sometimes it feels like we have it all to ourselves. Kai was happy that we decided to go to the beach.

Ava dug herself a nice hole to sit in.

Sunday morning I couldn't go back to sleep after Kai woke me up some time in the 4am hour. I was feeling grumpy and angry at the world. So at 6 I decided to sneak away and go on a walk to the beach. I happened to get to the beach right as the sun started peeking over the horizon. It was stunning.

I sat on the wall at the beach and listened to peaceful music, trying to get in a better mood. Then I looked down the beach and saw a guy kneeling down. I snapped a picture- was he proposing?

Yes, he was. Aww! They were hugging and watching the sunrise. After a little bit, I got brave and walked down to them and asked if they'd like the picture I took of him proposing. The guy was very grateful as he said he hadn't thought of having someone take their picture.

Moral of the story. If you're feeling rotten, just walk down to the beach at sunrise. It will help.

It was time for Kai's first hair cut! It was a team effort as Brent held the iPad up to keep Kai's attention.

Finished product- it turned out pretty cute!

I had a work meeting on a day off work so I had no babysitter, but that's okay since I was mostly just listening. This is what occupied a lot of Kai's time during my meeting- pulling all of the books out!

Our library hosted a Halloween party so we got to try out our family costume! Ever since we found out Kai was a boy and I found Coen's Dash costume at a discount store, we have been planning this. The Incredibles + Edna Mode!

Our adorable Jack Jack.

Our sneaky Violet:

Our reluctant Edna Mode (she hated the wig haha)

And our proud Dash:

The party was so fun with crafts, freeze dancing, a parade, trick or treating, face painting, etc.

Audrey was so excited she won one of the raffles.

Audrey could hardly wait all week for her field trip to the pumpkin patch. She chose the most perfect pumpkin and was so proud to show me:

A few funny Audrey moments from this month:

One morning I said to Audrey, "Did you brush your teeth? Did you know you're supposed to brush your teeth two times a day?

Audrey responded, "You're actually supposed to brush your teeth THREE times a day. But I don't like to listen."

Amen to that! That's so Audrey.

Audrey told me, "I have two June's in my class. June, and Youngjoon... But he's actually not little." I tried so hard to not laugh and explained to her that Youngjoon is a Korean name, and it doesn't actually mean that he's young.

We were talking about what happens after you die, and Audrey asked me, "Have you been ejected?" (Resurrected). I said no and she said, "Why not, you too young?"

Brent and I never go onto the balcony off our bedroom... why?! So we decided to have a short date out on our balcony after the kids went to bed. We listened to our songs and talked.

Ava watched Kai during our Primary program. She did a good job! She had to take him out a few times when he was being loud. She even got a couple videos too. Here's Coen's part:

I took this video at Sunday dinner just for fun to remember this time in our lives. I sent it to mine and Brent's mom and told them: "Brent's in his garments because we are dying of heat eating our warm food. Coen is dancing. Audrey's laughing maniacally. Kai is watching the show and Ava's in her own world. Brent is looking up songs to play next since he's favoring us with songs from Tim Burton movies for our October Sunday dinner. Just a normal dinner for us."

Audrey really wanted to be Rumi from KPop Demon Hunters. I couldn't find any reasonably priced costumes when I was looking in September, so I bought a white tank top and shorts from Target and figured I'd sew on some black trim to turn it into Rumi. A week or so before Halloween it occurred to me that I don't sew, and I couldn't even find a needle. Haha! Luckily, our 14 year old babysitter, Lydia, came to the rescue. She loves to sew and was making her little sisters KPop Demon Hunters costumes too. So while she babysat Kai she sewed Audrey's costume! She added black sequin fabric to the shorts, and the black ribbon cross on the tank top, and then also created a gold belt. She was able to do this while Kai napped, and while he sat in his chair eating snacks.

Kai learning to walk pushing our neighbor's little car. He wanted to push this car for so long every day!

The PCC held a little Halloween activity for the kids- a treasure hunt.

Each day of Halloween week was dress up day with a different theme.

Brent hosted his department's Halloween party. He created a game for everyone, brought music, and made it a fun party. There were a lot of great costumes. Here you can see Jack and Jill (he broke his crown).

Here's Brent doing the game he created, 6 Degrees of Frights from Quill to Brush to Camera- A Chain of Literary, Artistic, and Pop Culture Gothic and Halloween Icons.

Let me translate that for you- people had to identify pictures of the artists or authors that Brent had up on the screen, and then figure out what movie or book each two had in common.

Brent's department includes English and visual arts, along with his Pop Culture, so it was a way he connected all of them.

More after school hugs:

The costume Lydia made! Audrey was SO excited.

This video is only 3 days after the one above, and look how much better he got! Lots of practice :)

Ava and Aspen participated in the baking competition for the youth at our ward party. They created road kill zombie eyeballs (cake pops without the sticks).

I learned how to do a dragon braid for Audrey's hair and added in purple extensions.

Rumi!

Coen was Frodo at school:

Brent and I enjoyed the Halloween parade at the school:

Here we are preparing the candy to hand out- this year we did about 700 pieces and it lasted me about an hour and half:

Halloween evening- we invited the Bleazards to trick or treat with us and park in our driveway since they live in Hauula on a small dead end street. Brent also had a student tag along. Here's our group: